The World According to Black Women Photographers

Credit Adreinne Waheed

The World According to Black Women Photographers

By Sandra StevensonJun. 15, 2017Jun. 15, 2017

As a young photographer growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn was deeply influenced by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe’s book “Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers.” The 1986 book took a historical look at female photographers from the 1800s to the present day and left her eager to see more.

“I’ve always been waiting for an update,” Ms. Barrayn said. Had she left it to others, she’d still be keeping vigil. Tired of waiting, she and several colleagues finally decided to self-publish “Mfon: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora,” the first of a planned series of biannual journals, which features images by 100 women photographers from around the world. The journal is named in memory of Mmekutmfon ‘Mfon’ Essien, a young black photographer who died from breast cancer in 2001, one day before her show “The Amazon’s New Clothes” was to open at the Brooklyn Museum.

Photo

Nyamal. Addis Ababa, 2016.Credit Hilina Abebe

“I feel black women are very underrepresented in the field of photojournalism and fine art photography,” said Ms. Barrayn, who published the journal with her friends Adama Delphine Fawundu, a visual artist, and Crystal Whaley, an Emmy-winning producer. She explained that while there are photography books that feature black men and women photographers, nothing is solely devoted to black women.

Ms. Barrayn was seven when she got her first camera as a gift from her father. Ten years later, she got professional gear and would embark on a career covering arts and culture for local papers and magazines like Vibe. She now travels the world and juggles documentary and fine art photography.

She had actually tried publishing an early version of the journal in 2006, when she and Ms. Fawundu decided the time had come to celebrate the work of black female photographers. “We put a call out and people sent their work in,” she said. “We created a prototype.” They enlisted Deborah Willis, chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, who agreed to write the foreword.

Despite having the images and the support of Dr. Willis, a noted scholar and artist, they weren’t able to secure funding. Ms. Barrayn attributed that to their youth and the fact that they were featuring photographers who were not well known. “We were told that they don’t see this having an audience, because you’re emerging and the photographers featured are emerging: Who is the audience?” she said.

They shelved the project and went on to work on their own art.

Photo

Holding hands in church.Credit Marilyn Nance

Ten years later, Ms. Barrayn and Ms. Fawundu took a different approach, seeking grants that would allow them to publish the book themselves. In January 2017, Ms. Barrayn checked her email and learned that the project had won a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. “I took that as a sign for us to keep going,” she said. This month, she started a crowdfunding campaign to raise $13,000 to presell the inaugural issue and support the continuing project.

Initially, the book was only going to feature a select few, but Ms. Barrayan wanted to make a statement by featuring 100 black women from across the globe.

Ms. Barrayan relied on her international connections, since wherever work took her — whether Cairo, Addis Abbas, or Senegal — she always sought to connect with the local photo community. “Delphine and I have this thing we call ‘My Sister’s Keeper,’” Ms. Barrayan said. So it’s no surprise that with this book, they want to bring everyone with them.

Photo

Following a West African tradition, Malian women give money to an expectant mother at her baby shower. May 2017.Credit Fanta Diop/Bronx Documentary Center

The book’s 100 photographers range from 13 to 91 with work across genres. “What I love about this is that midcareer and emerging women are highlighted,” Ms. Barrayan said. She met the youngest photographer, 13-year-old Fanta Diop, at the Bronx Documentary Center where she is a member of the Bronx Junior Photo League. She met the oldest, 91-year-old Mildred Harris Jackson, through Karen Taylor, the founder of While We Are Still Here, a historic preservation group devoted to Harlem’s famed Sugar Hill neighborhood, which has been home to many cultural and political luminaries. Armed with a Brownie that was given to her as a Christmas present, she documented her family and neighborhood from her teenage years through her mid-30s.

“Mfon: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora” will be available in early fall. In time, she hopes these this book and the following volumes will make a simple — yet powerful — statement: “No one can say ‘I don’t know any black women photographers.’”